


my soul to keep

by Tiara_of_Sapphires



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Requited Love, spoilers for dimitri/dedue support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21728974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiara_of_Sapphires/pseuds/Tiara_of_Sapphires
Summary: In the course of the war, Dimitri realizes how much he has to lose.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 3
Kudos: 62





	my soul to keep

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve accidentally almost killed Dedue too many times to count due to sneaky mages (and actually got him killed once but I fixed it so don’t worry), so this is a tribute.
> 
> [Big thanks to celia (crossingwinter) for looking this over!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter)
> 
> Enjoy!

Dedue’s cry of pain almost stopped his heart.

It had happened so fast.

Dedue and Dimitri fought side-by-side, Dedue half a pace in front of him to soak up arrows with his shield. They were unstoppable, the battalions they fought collapsing under their might.

Then Dedue moved in front of Dimitri with a speed that belied the weight of his armor. He opened his mouth to shout a question before the telltale flash of magic hit Dedue in the torso and sent him off his feet.

Ashe’s bow found the offending mage before Dimitri’s eye could. The threat eliminated, he sprinted the steps that separated king from his shield.

The dark magic melted his armor to a warped mess, scalding his flesh. He looked so small in the armor, now that it was trying to kill him.

Dimitri clawed at the latches, fighting to pull the breastplate away. The metal singed his fingers, but he felt nothing but fear. Dedue’s shirt burned and his skin blistered. A shallow crater of burnt flesh stretched from the left side of his abdomen across to his right shoulder.

“Mercedes!” Dimitri yelled. “Oh, Goddess, I need a healer! Mercedes!”

His eye scanned the battlefield, his sight blurring with panic, looking for a tell-tale white dress.

Magic always failed him. He could never manage even the simplest spells, so he had left that task for the others in his class. Lance had suited him just fine. He read battle strategies while the Professor gave her lectures on light and dark magics.

Now, he wished he knew even the easiest of healing spells, if only to chase away the pinched pain that marred Dedue’s face. He plucked off burning flecks of cloth before pulling Dedue closer.

Dimitri had become a man of few words and the words he spoke were often of vengeance and anger. It wasn’t until his mind cleared that he understood his place, being careful with how he spoke. The word he kept tucked close to his chest, the ones that mattered most to him, remained unsaid.

He wished he hadn’t been such a coward.

“Your watch hasn’t ended, Dedue.”

Even now, a coward’s words, a king to his vassal, not a friend to a friend, not something _more_. Dimitri shook the other man as hard as he could without aggravating the wound.

He had just gotten him back. Damn it, they both should have died by Cornelia’s hand, but it was willed that they would be free, that they would find each other again.

“You _swore_ you would stand by my side. You can’t die yet.”

Dedue grunted, eyes flickering open and closed. The wiser part of Dimitri knew that it was in pain, not acknowledgement.

Mercedes and transport came in a flurry. Her hair was wild and the air around her crackled with wild energy.

“The battle is won, Your Highness,” the cart driver called out. “We will get him to a safe zone.”

“I am coming with you.”

Dimitri flagged down one of the cavalries, who practically fell over herself to offer her horse to him.

He followed the cart as close as he safely could, his eyes hardly straying from the figure lying in the back. Mercedes bowed over Dedue and magic sparked over her fingertips.

Poisonous jealousy bubbled up and he clenched the reins in a white-knuckled grip. Nobody knew Dedue like Dimitri did. That was his privilege and his alone. Even then, he didn't dare touch Dedue, except for the occasional pat on the shoulder. To see someone else, who would never be as close to Dedue, have the contact that Dimitri deprived himself of, boiled his blood with possessiveness.

It was foolish and selfish of him. He had called to Mercedes for help and she was the best healer in all of Fódlan. She would return Dedue to him.

He would have to forgive the contact, for now.

* * *

* * *

Dimitri was kept out of Dedue’s room for hours and he didn't stray far from the door. He couldn't hear any moans of pain, but he could hear the rush of magic as Mercedes and the other healers tended to him.

One of the healers gave him a salve for the burns on his hands. He used enough to tame the flaring burns and blisters, but not enough to fully heal them. It was his own form of penance, he supposed.

Byleth joined him for a while, exchanging few words. He knew she blamed herself for failing to keep Dedue safe, but even then, Dimitri couldn't be upset with her. Byleth had been busy making sure Annette and Felix didn't get themselves killed fighting in the other flank.

More than anything, she seemed to watch him more than the closed door.

“Is there something on my face?” Dimitri mumbled.

She blinked, shaking her head. “I was just thinking.”

Byleth always was a woman of few words, giving away few tells to her emotions. It would be off-putting for Dimitri, but it was endearing in its own way. “A gold piece for your thoughts, then?”

Byleth rocked onto her heels and back. “I don’t think I have any place to voice them. It truly is none of my business, what I am thinking of.”

“I suppose I’m in no position to order you to tell me.”

Byleth snorted. “No. I’m just thinking about you and Dedue.” Her expression softened. “You two truly care for each other, beyond this king-vassal business.”

Dimitri froze, giving himself away as his failed to school his expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, it’s not as if Dedue would return those kinds of feelings…”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Byleth interrupted.

Heat immediately flashed to his face. It was a terrible thing to give a man hope when there was none. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She smiled and tapped a finger to her lips. “As I said, not my place.”

The door swung open and the healers filed out, promptly distracting Dimitri and allowing Byleth to slip away.

“You may visit him, Your Highness,” the lead healer said with a bow.

He didn't need any more encouragement.

Mercedes squeezed his arm as she passed. She looked drained from the exertion, but Dimitri could barely manage a ‘thank you’ in exchange. She would forgive him for that.

He swallowed around tears and bile as he took in the sight, finding a chair to sit when his knees became weak. The entire room smelled like ozone and healing salves, chokingly thick.

“Dedue,” he breathed.

Thick, white bandages wrapped around his chest and abdomen. Tiny bits of gauze stuck onto his neck and chin, likely hiding pockmark burns. His topknot had come undone, leaving his white hair in a mess. He looked so utterly unlike the stern protector that Dimitri had come to rely on.

Some sick part of him didn’t mind; it even relished in seeing that vulnerable humanness in him. He was laid low, and now it was time for Dimitri to take on the role of protector, as unnecessary as it was.

Dimitri watched him. Annette brought him a platter of leftovers in the dining hall, which sat cold and uneaten in the corner. She also brought a bouquet of flowers, collected by the rest of the house, in a little vase. It sat too with the neglected food.

It wasn’t for Dimitri to enjoy.

Dawn of the second day had come and gone when, finally, Dedue stirred.

It started as a hitch of breath and scrunch of the face, perhaps a wince when the numbness of sleep was chased away by the pain of reality.

Dimitri watched it all, drank in the signs of life.

A gentle shift, one, two, before finally Dedue opened his eyes. Those blue-green eyes shifted around the room, disoriented, before finding Dimitri. A blank stare, and there! That unguarded smile that had Dimitri smiling dumbly in return. Dedue winced again, shifting.

“Your Highness,” he rasped, clearing his throat.

Dimitri bristled, suddenly unsure if he wanted to kiss the other man silly or shake him until his eyeballs rattled. The fool. The perfectly wonderful fool.

“You almost died protecting me, Dedue. _Again_.”

Dedue glanced down at himself, clearly taking in the thick bandages that wrapped around his chest.

“I see.”

He was always so cavalier about his own life, so set to protect Dimitri at his own detriment. Dimitri sighed before taking up the glass of water on the bedside table. He couldn't have a conversation with someone who could barely talk, though Dimitri wished he could just talk and talk and have Dedue actually listen to him for once.

“Let me help you drink.” He stood and inched closed to Dedue.

“That isn’t necessary.”

“I don’t care,” Dimitri muttered. If he had to make this an order to make Dedue obey, he would.

He raised the glass to Dedue’s lips, gently tipping it back and letting water drip into his waiting mouth. Dimitri pulled away after a few seconds, before returning and helping Dedue finish the rest.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

Again, the titles. It was something to be thrown away, and yet, they remained.

Dimitri stood up and began to pace, suddenly unable to sit still. He wanted to return to the battlefield and steal that kill from Ashe. He would beat that wretched mage bloody before killing him.

“You know that armor leaves you vulnerable. I could’ve dodged it myself or taken the hit and let Mercedes or Annette fix me.”

Dedue watched him impassively from his bedside. A drop of water dribbled from the corner of his lip and down his chin. It took a lot to rattle the man and clearly Dimitri’s words were falling on deaf ears. “You would have likely died instead if I hadn’t stepped in front of that mage. My life isn’t worth yours.”

Dimitri’s hand found the glass and flung it against the wall. A predictable answer, one he didn't want to hear.

“Like hell it isn’t!” Dimitri shouted. He hated this, this pretense, this false sense of honor and decorum. They danced around this _thing_ for years: who should protect whom, whose life was worth more. “You don't get to say things like that. You shouldn’t have given your life for mine in Fhirdiad to begin with.”

That was the one decision that had kept him up at night, even after Dedue had returned. Dimitri left him behind, implicitly agreeing that Dedue’s life was worth less than his.

“You swore, after the bridge, to never throw away your life again.” Dimitri swallowed. “If I were a crueler man, I would have you punished for breaking your vow."

He shook his head before sitting back down next to Dedue. He couldn't look at him. The bandages and salves that covered his chest were foul reminders of Dimitri’s failure.

“I suppose I let this happen.” Dimitri wrung his hands together, pressing his fingers against the barely-healed wounds that peppered his skin. The tiny flashes of pain served as pitiful distraction from the man resting next to him. “If you…if you’re trying to get yourself killed for me, do it because you are my friend, not because of your obligation to your oath. And even then, I don’t want you to die for me.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Dedue move and Dimitri jumped to his feet. Realizing his rudeness, he strode over to the vase in the corner of the room. Glass shards crunched underfoot with each step.

“The others got you flowers, from the greenhouse. They were worried about you.”

He set the vase on the table and sat back down, still unable to look at Dedue.

“You didn't contribute?” Dedue asked.

Another flash of shame, as nonsensical as it was. “I—I’ve been here since the healers were done.”

For a long moment, Dedue didn't respond.

Dimitri glanced at him, expecting the other man to have fallen asleep. Instead, Dedue’s head was turned, his eyes wide open.

Dedue wasn’t looking at the flowers, but at Dimitri.

“That’s a pity. I’m sure your addition to this would’ve been beautiful,” Dedue said.

His eyes didn’t stray from Dimitri and heat crawled under his collar.

“I seem to need to make up for my negligence,” Dimitri murmured, clearing his throat.

He stood, steeling himself. Perhaps he was even more of a fool than Dedue was.

Dedue watched him, shock-still as Dimitri ducked down. His lips brushed Dedue’s, eyes closed to avoid the disgust that likely painted Dedue’s face. It was perfect, warmer and softer than what Dimitri had imagined, enough to keep him warm for the rest of the war, if need be.

“I’m sorry, Dedue,” he whispered, a hairsbreadth from Dedue’s mouth. “From the bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry.”

For the kiss, for the war, for setting him up to die in his stead, for every moment he put the other man in danger.

Remembering himself, Dimitri began to pull away, ready to stammer out another apology for the obvious breach of personal space. Dedue caught his hand before he could even take a step back. His fingers dug into the blisters, but Dimitri didn't care. All he could feel was the blood rushing to his face, making him feel dizzy.

“Don’t, Dimitri. It’s…not unwelcome.”

Relief shook through him, but the words left him unsatisfied. He used his given name—Dimitri would never get tried of hearing his own name in Dedue’s mouth—but, it was still doublespeak, the words between two in a professional relationship.

“Say what you mean, Dedue. Please.”

All he needed to do was ask. Dimitri took and took from him and Dedue so willingly gave. If the tables were turned, Dimitri would give him anything, even the whole Kingdom, if he asked for it.

It was Dedue’s turn to blush. “I would like another.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You are my king, my friend. I had hoped that the day would come that I would have the courage, but it seems you will always be more courageous than I.”

Dimitri glanced down at the bandages. “I wish this was under different circumstances.”

“As do I.”

Dimitri sucked in a breath, a warm flutter in his chest.

“Allow me to kiss you, then, again and again.”

Dedue’s hand left his, reaching up to card through Dimitri’s hair, pressing his face close. The contact sent a chill down his spine.

He had to be gentle, but oh, when Dedue was healed…

“Yes, Dimitri.”

Dimitri kissed Dedue again and Dedue kissed back and for a moment, in the midst of an endless war, a bit of the world was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!  
>    
> [Here’s my Tumblr! Feel free to follow and drop Blue Lions drabble/fic requests!](https://tiaraofsapphires.tumblr.com/)
> 
> All feedback is appreciated! Comments/kudos feed me and definitely motivate me to write more stories!
> 
> Cheers!


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